Chatham County, North Carolina is a lovely rural environment, just perfect for artists to create and show their work. Chatham's visual and performing artists offer unique authentic creations, just minutes from the Triangle, Triad and Southern Pines communities.
Come experience our creativity!
*Copyright of Forrest C. Greenslade, PhD

Art students from the Haw River Christian Academy in
Pittsboro visited a number of studios at the 20th Chatham Studio
Tour. Their art teacher, Lisa Harrington guided the 4th through 7th
graders in their special tour, linking the educational experiences of local
artists to what they are learning in their classes. They enjoyed seeing the
work of Dmitri and Janet Resnick, Emma Skurnick, Mark Hewitt and Forrest
Greenslade.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

The first weekend of the Tour was blessed with perfect weather. Some very nice folks visited our studios, gallery and sculpture garden. Suzanne Edney from Custom Landscapes took this photo in our garden.

Weather for the second weekend, December 8th and 9th, looks to be pretty nice as well.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Beginning December 2nd,
Chatham photographer Horty Jacobs will exhibit a collection of her arresting
photographs at the Spa at Bell House, 74 East Salisbury Street in historic
Pittsboro, NC. In the many photographs, Jacobs calls “Beauty at the End of the
Line,” she has captured abstract images of color, texture and composition that
she sees in ageing surfaces of abandoned vehicles. “I find beauty in the faded, cracked, rusted surfaces transformed
by the relentless power of time and the elements,” Jacobs observes. “I am drawn
to abandoned places and things – junkyards -- derelict buildings -- railroad
graveyards. I love the relentless effects of time and the elements -- Slowly,
inexorably painted surfaces, fade, crack, peel, succumbing as rust steals
in.”Jacobs captures exactly what she
sees through the camera’s lens, an image without any embellishment. She employs
no supplemental illumination, reflectors, nothing to alter the natural light.
“I shoot 35 mm color exclusively, mostly slide film,” she explains.

A new comer to Chatham County,
Jacobs’ photography and paintings have been displayed in many galleries and
juried shows, including: The Delaware Valley Arts Alliance Gallery,
Narrowsburgh, N. Y.; the Port O’Call Gallery, Warwick, N. Y.; the Gallant
Gallery, Salem, Mass.; the Essex Fine Art Gallery and the Colonnade Gallery,
both in Montclair, N. J. Also, the renowned Peters Valley Colony’s Annual Arts
& Craft Fair. Ten of her photographs were selected to decorate the set in
the HBO movie “Brooklyn, U.S.A.”

Thursday, November 15, 2012

In October, Chatham County painter, sculptor and writer Forrest Greenslade conducted an outdoor workshop at NC State's 10th Annual Natural Learning Design Institute at
the NC Botantical
Garden. The Design Institute offered presentations
from experts in the fields of childcare, outdoor learning design and the
environment, particularly in childcare settings.

Photo by Jesse Turner NLI

Greenslade worked with a group of students and early childhood professionals from around North Carolina to learn techniques of concrete sculpture. Participants dug holes in the wondergarden, a space for kids to explore nature and play at The Garden. They then mixed a concrete composite that Greenslade uses to create sculpture, and poured the mixture into the holes. Pieces of cedar wood were inserted into the concrete material to produce toadstool stems.

After allowing a couple of weeks for the concrete to cure, the Botanical Garden Staff dug up the pieces, and assembled them into a whymsical Toadstool Town.
﻿

Photo by Forrest

It tweeks the imagination to think what kids will do in Toadstool Town over the next months.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

This year, Chatham County painter, sculptor and writer Forrest Greenslade will open his Fearrington Village studios and sculpture garden for the first two weekends in December for the 20th Annual Chatham Studio Tour. His studio will be open from 10 to 5 on Saturday December 1st, Sunday December 2nd, Saturday December 8th and Sunday December 9th.﻿﻿﻿﻿The Chatham Tour is a holiday tradition. Visitors from all around enjoy Chatham’s rural
beauty and share in the creative process with the members of the Chatham Artists Guild. Fifty artists who live and create in Chatham
County, will open their studios the first two weekends in December.
﻿
﻿Art-lovers can meet Tour artists
and see samplings of their works at receptions at FRANK Gallery in Chapel Hill
on November 29th from 6 to 8 PM, and November 30th at
Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro from 7 to 9 PM.

Lord God Bird:My painting exhibiting at CCCC

"I have a good inventory of new paintings and prints, and will feature my latest book Visitations: A Nature-Lover's Journal. This is a collection of my recent paintings, haiku poems and spaces for you to journal your gardening and nature experiences. Of course, you can stroll through our Forrest Dweller Sculpture Garden."
Directions: Once you arrive at Fearrington village on Rt 15/501, turn into Village Way. You can get to our Forreat Dweller Sculpture Garden by turning at Creekwood (the first left) or at Windstone (the second left). Follow the signs to number 32 at 149 Tinderwood.
﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿
Fearrington Village has five additional Guild artists exhibiting in this year’s Tour: painter and mixed media artists Carol Owen (29), junque artist Rita Spina (30), painter Kim Werfel (31), print maker Vidabeth Bensen (33), and photographer Roy Lindholm (34).

A free self-guided brochure and tour map can be found in numerous locations throughout the area, including: FRANK Gallery in Chapel Hill, Saxaphaw Artists Gallery, McIntyres Fine Books in Fearrington Village, PAF Gallery in Siler City and The Joyful Jewel in Pittsboro. An online gallery of selected Tour art, information about participating artists, and a tour map and guide can be found on the Chatham Artists Guild website at: http://www.chathamartistsguild.org.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Eclectic
sculptor Nate Sheaffer was one of the original Chatham County artists that Tour
founder Cathy Holt selected to open his studio to the public in 1992. Sheaffer
is one of 50 artists who live and create in Chatham County, who will open their
studios the first two weekends in December for the 20th Annual
Chatham Studio Tour. Art-lovers can meet Tour artists and see samplings of
their works at receptions at FRANK Gallery in Chapel Hill on November 29th
from 7 to 9 PM, and November 30th at Central Carolina Community
College in Pittsboro from 7 to 9 PM.

Chatham Artist Nate SheafferPhoto by: Bruce DeBoer

Sheaffer
has been creating and building since his childhood on the banks of the
Susquehanna River in tiny Liverpool, Pennsylvania. “I was the baby of eight
kids,” Sheaffer notes. “My mother was a great illustrator, but didn’t have much
time for art with two jobs – a tailor and seamstress in a dress factory, and occasionally
as a hair dresser in the local funeral home,” he remembers. “My dad was a
machinist, and dug graves with my uncle.” Sheaffer’s father created airboats
for riding the mile across river, using airplane engines that he had recycled.

The
river was a continuous inspiration for the family. “My father, my brothers and
I built cabins on islands out in the river from wood and other materials that
we scavenged from its waters, Sheaffer recalls. “As a 14 year old boy, this was
one of the first things that I built, and I never stopped building,” Sheaffer
asserts.

Sculpture by Nate Sheaffer

Sheaffer
came to North Carolina in the early 80s with a javelin throwing scholarship to
UNC Chapel Hill. “My brother won the same scholarship previously,” he notes.
Sheaffer was a German language and literature major, but really enjoyed
sculpture classes with well known UNC teacher Robert Howard, who created large
cast and welded sculptures, and Jerry Noe, who made mixed media works, often
employing neon. “Noe urged me to employ neon to lighten up my sculptural
pieces,” Sheaffer reflects.

Sheaffer
sought the guidance of John Wilhelm, who owned Paradise Neon in Raleigh. “This
was a critical influence for me,” he states. “John tutored me for free, and
encouraged me to set up my own neon shop in Chapel Hill in 1986.”

After
six months, it was clear to Sheaffer that he would not make a good living
making neon art, so he turned his creativity to commercial production.
Ultimately, he grew the business, Neon Impressions to 25 employees centered in
Chatham County. “We made thousands of neon signs and distributed nationally and
internationally,” he asserts. “Coca Cola signs throughout Germany were made
right here.” From 1992 to 1994 he opened the shop in Pittsboro as a participant
in the new Chatham Studio Tour.

Nate Sheaffer employs neon in eclectic art

As
Sheaffer’s business grew, it left little time for creating art, but in 1999,
production neon began to be off shored to China. Sheaffer sold off the business
and property. He worked for a time as a project manager and estimator for a
contractor in Siler City. For the last several years, Nate Sheaffer has been a
full time stay at home dad for his son and daughter. His wife is a pediatric
neurologist. “Laundry, shopping, cooking, reading to the kids, didn’t leave
much time for creating art,” he grins. Now with both children in school,
Sheaffer is “scratching my creative itch” once more. “I am so excited to
participate in the 20th Chatham Studio Tour,” Sheaffer emotes. I
will exhibit with my friend, and fellow glass artist Jonathan Davis in his
studio.” See a video on Sheaffer's work.

The
Chatham Studio Tour is a holiday tradition, and an opportunity to see and
purchase unique original art. Visitors from all around enjoy Chatham’s rural
beauty and share with the members of the Chatham Artists Guild in the creative
process. “Our Tour is an important economic engine,” notes Guild President,
Julia Kennedy. Last year, Tour visitors came from counties all around North
Carolina, and as far away as New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona
and California. “As they travel around Chatham, they stop at restaurants, gas
stations and all kinds of local businesses,” Kennedy continues.

A
free self-guided brochure and tour map can be found in numerous locations
throughout the area, including: FRANK Gallery in Chapel Hill, Saxaphaw Artists
Gallery, McIntyres Fine Books in Fearrington Village, PAF Gallery in Siler City
and The Joyful Jewel in Pittsboro. An online gallery of selected Tour art,
information about participating artists, and a tour map and guide can be found
on the Chatham Artists Guild website at: http://www.chathamartistsguild.org.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

This ornithological assemblage was created in concrete and
steel. A family of regrettable expressions, these “rebirds”, named for their
disproportionately long legs sculpted in rebar, remind us of the many avoidable
foibles that life presents. The largest, “A Greater Regret”, will dominate a
garden space. The slightly smaller and less obtrusive, “A Lesser Regret”. The
coming of age Regret is “A Youthful Indiscretion”. The three babies are “Minor
Mistakes”.

Be sure to visit the Garden -- It is an especially good sculpture show this year.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Kathryn Greenslade Armstrong has just participated in an Artsquest member show at Bethleham Pensylvania's Banana Factory. She exhibited two acrylic paintings on canvas -- one called "Alpha's Shadow" is a remembrance of a trip with her family to a wolf preserve -- the other, "Three Little Cows" is a reflecton of her Lehigh Valley rural environs.

Armstrong is a classically trained graphic designer with a BFA from New York's Parson School of Design. She also has a certification in Web Technology from Allentown Business School. After working for years in publishing, primarily in health care, she currently applies her creativity to marketing and public affairs at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown Pensylvania.

Kathryn Armstrong lives in Makungie PA with her husband Steve and daughter Nicole.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Visitors
to the 20th Chatham Studio Tour will enjoy Quartz Hill Quilts (http://www.quartzhillquilts.com),
the sewing studio of Susanna Stewart, in a home that she and her husband Sandy
built with their own hands over a period of over 35 years. “It is the home in
which I grew up - not in the traditional meaning of the word, but where I
learned to be an adult in a world full of challenges,” Stewart says. “Life here
began in a tree house, then a house slowly evolved, grew, aged, got repaired
and remodeled, ever changing, a reflection of my own process and growth.”

Stewart
creates quilts alive with color and dazzling floral fabrics. “Currently I find
myself drawn mostly to bed quilts or throws,” she notes. “I have hundreds of
quilting projects in my head. Sometimes I have three going at one time. I am
fortunate enough to have adequate space and light, so I can spread out.” Lately
she has been drawn to wall hangings and totes.

Stewart’s
life path to fabric art and the Chatham Artists Guild was long and circuitous.
Susanna’s mother died when she was eight year old. “I have very few memories of
my mom,” she stresses, “but her loss was an issue for me for many years.” When her father remarried a year
after her mother’s death, her relationship with her stepmother was difficult.
“There was a lot of turmoil,” Stewart recalls. “So much so, that for my last
two years of high school I went off to Concord Academy, a boarding school in
Massachusetts.” It was there that she had an intellectual awakening. “I
discovered Gandhi, Faulkner, and was
particularly enthralled by an art history course,” she says. During summers,
she worked on a ranch in Montana
to avoid the difficulties at home. “I loved it there,” she asserts. “I cooked,
build fences, trained horses.”

“In
a lot of ways, the early death of my mother andthe
challenging relationship with my stepmother resulted in many of my personal
strengths,” Stewart concludes.“The
greatest gift my stepmother provided was to teach me to sew.”

On
graduation from high school in 1961, her father urged her to go to nursing
school. “Back then, girls became either nurses or teachers,” she says. She
started at BostonUniversity and completed studies at RexHospital
in Raleigh.

For
20 years Stewart worked as a nurse, mostly at Duke and UNC. Then, she made a
major life change. “I found the schedule to be difficult on family life, and as
a self employed carpenter and stone mason I had much more say about my
schedule,” she asserts. Building our own home necessitated developing skills in
this area, and we branched out building homes for others.” During this time I
took a class in stained glass and made many windows, mostly with floral
designs. Years later I discovered I had high levels of lead in my blood, so
that was the end of stained glass work.

By
the time Stewart was in her late 30s, she became interested in acupuncture. “I
was still drawn to the healing arts,” she says. “I realized I did not want to
be hauling heavy boards around when I was 50”
The family moved to Santa Fe for three years, while she studied acupuncture.
For 20 years, what is now Stewart’s sewing home studio, was an acupuncture
clinic. “I have been “retired” from that practice for several years now, and
quilting has taken up what spare time I manage to carve out for myself,” she
quips. The arrival of grandchildren, including twin granddaughters eighteen
months ago has limited her time for quilting. Stewart’s daughter is Lara
O’Keefe, a well regarded ChathamCounty potter.

Since
childhood, Stewart had a passion for the bright prints and colors in fabric,
and she had quite a stash of fabric even before she made her first real quilt
about 11 years ago. “I was in the local fabric store, Thimble Pleasures,
when I fell in love with a quilt hanging on the wall in the shop. “I took a
class and off I went,” she exclaims. “I am very grateful to Julie Holbrook for
creating such a nourishing, stimulating fabric shop just 25 minutes from my
house.” I have taken many classes there, although my learning continues just by
being in the shop.

As Stewart’s grandkids grow, and she has more
time to quilt, she employs the many strategic and organizational skills that
she has learned over her varied and colorful life.

“Quilting
is much like carpentry and stained glass work, but a lot easier on the body”
she laughs.

Susanna
Stewart is one of the many regionally and nationally recognized artists and
fine crafts people who will open their studios the first two weekends in
December at the 20th Annual Chatham Studio Tour (http://www.chathamartistsguild.org/about/details.html).
Visitors from all around enjoy Chatham’s
rural beauty and share with the members of the Chatham Artists Guild in the
creative process. It is a holiday tradition, and an opportunity to purchase
unique original art.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Artist Studios at Fearrington Village presents the 3rd
Art in the Village. Browse fine art and crafts among the beautiful
gardens of Fearrington Village. The outdoor exhibit and sale showcases a group
of over 30 visual artists who live and create within Fearrington.
Exhibitors: painters, potters, sculptors, photographers, jewelers,
woodworkers, fabric artists - art which represents a wide variety of styles and
media. Join us – it’s family friendly and free!

Stroll through beautiful gardens. Enjoy lovely and exciting music.
Have a snack or a meal in Fearrington’s renowned restaurants. Visit McIntyre’s
Books, a delightful independent bookstore.

Enjoy exhibits by local, regional and nationally-known artists who
live and create in Fearrington Village and purchase their original artworks.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Len Jacobs will display his life’s collection
of nature and travel photographs at his home studio during the 20th
Chatham Studio Tour the first two weekends in December, but these visions are
serendipitous.

Chatham County photographer Len Jacobs

When Len Jacobs was a young child in the
1920s in the Harlem district of New York City, it was evident that he had some
sort of vision problem. “My parents had a small shop there, which went belly
up, and we had to move to Brownsville Brooklyn to my mom’s family home,” Jacobs
remembers. “They had a two-family house, with a store underneath.” In the
store, his grandfathermade ladies coats
and gave Len’s dad a job. “His dad had to learn how to use a sewing machine,
and to design clothing,” Jacobs' recalls. His vision problems increased, and
when he was three years old, Len’s folks finally found an optometrist in
Hackensack New Jersey, where they learned he had only 7% vision. The problem
was spreading to the extent that "I might even go blind,” Jacobs stresses.
“I probably couldn’t even go to school,”

Fortunately, there was a Sight Conservation
Class available in the New York City Public Schools.“It was K through 6th grade, and the teacher
understood kids with visual problems as well as their needs” Jacobs says. “We
had special pencils, large print books, matte paper whilephysical activity was prohibited.” It was
thought that Jacobs’ visual problems made him susceptible for a possible
retinal detachment.

I

n Junior high school there was also a Sight
Conservation Class an hour’s double trolley ride away. Despite the school’s
prohibition against physical exertion, Len and his visually impaired classmates
played punchball, a street game combining the elements of handball, stickball
and baseball, at lunch hour. In high school, he became even more physically active.
“I had no problems with my eyes, and even began thinking of becoming a
PhysicalEducation teacher, he notes.

Jacobs pursued this goal at NYU School of
Education, received a BS in Education in 1948, and an MA in Health Education
and Administration a year later. However, when he started looking for a job in
the New York City public school system, his old vision problems came to the
fore again. “You had to have 20/30 eye sight to get a license to teach Phys
Ed,” Jacobs laments, “therefore I failed the medical exam.”

The diagnosis was a type of astigmatism
creating an elongation of the eyeball,which might make him a candidate for a retinal detachment.Jacobs filed a series of appeals with the
school system and the New York State Commissioner of Education. He had
examinations by prominent ophthalmologists, who documented that the previous
diagnosis was in error. He waited for the authorities to respond. In the mean
time he and his wife Doris relocated to Elmira, NY and Washington, DC, where he
found various jobs. Finally, in 1951 Len Jacobs received licenses to teach high
school biology, high school physical education and elementary school in New
York City. Finding an actual job was still a challenge, but he landed a
position as an Attendance Officer where enjoyed a 35 year career while he
became a Certified Social Worker. After a competitive exam, he became licensed
and was appointed as a District Supervisor of Attendance in the New York City
School system Bureau of Attendance. Of course he had many educational and
societal interesting experiences. “One day, I had to visit John Gotti’s home to
find out why his kid was absent from school,” he quips.

Jasper National Park; Alberta, CanadaPhoto by len Jacobs

Jacobs' family life, with four children, was
the foundation for his avocation as a photographer. In the summer, we had more
time than money,” he laughs. “We started taking little camping trips for family
fun.” He, of course, took vacation photos. “I wasn’t a very good photographer,”
he admits, “so I began to take courses and to study books on photography while
riding the Long Island Railroad each day to work.” He joined local camera clubs
to hone his skills. He began to share his photos, taken from larger and larger
trips to state and national parks all across the country and in Canada, with
audiences throughout the greater New York City area. He has won numerous awards
and recognition. The one he is most proud of ,however, was his "Ice
Pattern" at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art,Photography as an Art Form.

Now in retirement here in North Carolina, Len
Jacobs continues to share his life’s catalog of photographic experiences. He
has served as President of the Nassau County Camera Club on Long Island as well
as President of Chapel Hill Camera Club. In the past he was Director of the
Southeastern Council of Camera Clubs Convention. He has presented multiple
projector slide shows with music and poetry and special audio-visual
techniques. He still judges photo competitions and lectures on "photo
composition." He recently began to transfer the images captured in his
myriad of slides to digital files, and printing them for people to enjoy in
their own homes. “I really enjoy it when people share my precious visions,”
Jacobs emotes.

On the inside jacket flap of his book
"Birds I've Seen" the following is written, "There is something
inherently special about Len's photography. These photos illustrate that
photography performed with such care and precision, with such love and respect,
with such skill in the use of camera tools, can be an art form for all to share
and enjoy."

The irony of it all is, that a man who was
told to avoid physical activity, and that at the age of three might soon be
blind, has used his camera to record and share with others some of the visual
music of our beautiful world.

Len Jacobs is one of the many
regionally and nationally recognized artists and fine crafts people who will
open their studios the first two weekends in December at the 20th
Annual Chatham Studio Tour (
http://www.chathamartistsguild.org/about/details.html ). Visitors from all
around enjoy Chatham’s rural beauty and share with the members of the Chatham
Artists Guild in the creative process. It is a holiday tradition, and an
opportunity to purchase unique original
art.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Chatham County North Carolina's Pittsboro has some wonderful parks and recreation facilities. The Mary Hayes Barber Park, just north of town off Route 15/501, is a delightful spot for sports and kid's play.

Parks planner Paul Horne, when laying out the park, brought in an assemblage of large rocks. He had them laid out in a serpentine arrangement, as a containing wall for a garden just behing the soccer field. In his mind's eye, Horne saw a giant dragon frolicking among the grasses and flowers.

Horne inspired Chatham artists Jonathan Davis, Joe Kenlan and Forrest Greenslade to transform the formidable wall of rocks into an imposing dragon for kids to enjoy.

Sculptor and painter Greenslade first measured the "head stone" and welded a base for the armiture, the skeletal structure that underpinns a sculpture.

Stone mason Joe Kenlan drilled holes into the large very hard rock, and fastened the "lower jaw" to the rock with bolts.

Greenslade then began creating the armature from hardware cloth and chicken wire. He incorporated a red tongue that he had fabricated from sheet steel.

Horne, Kenlan and Greenslade then mixed a composite material from cement, peat moss and an acrylic fortifyer. His procedures are published on his website.They plastered it over the the wire armiture. Horne added spines, using slate tiles rescued from on old building.

They inserted class eyeballs that had been created by glass artist Jonathan Davis.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Local writer John Keith will read from his latest book, "Canebrake Beach" at McIntyre's Bookstore in Fearrington Village on Friday, August 24 at 2:00 p.m.

"Canebrake
Beach" is a novella and short story collection that explores friendships,
relationships, and conflicts of white and black Southerners at various
intervals over a span of seventy years. Four tenant families, some black
and some white, lived on the farm owned by the author's family when he was a
child. Although no one who grew up on the farm was active in the civil
rights movement except for him, in "Canebrake Beach" he imagines what
might have happened to members of similar black and white families as they
progressed from the Jim Crow era and beyond.

.

John
Matthew Keith is a retired Episcopal minister who has lived in Fearrington
Village, North Carolina with his wife Rilla for over five years. He began writing fiction
as a student at Duke University where he was awarded the Anne Flexner Memorial
Prize (presented by William Styron). Anne Tyler was a student in the
creative writing class taught by Dr. William Blackburn when John was the
teaching assistant. Although his secular stories, like "Canebrake
Beach", have been published in magazines and periodicals over the years,
his most recently published books focused on spirituality: "Complete
Humanity in Jesus: A Theological Memoir" (2009) and "True Divinity in
Christ: A Testimony of Faith and Hope with Four Short Stories" (2010).

"Canebrake Beach" was published simultaneously as an e-book and in paper.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Fiber
artist Christie Minchew (www.christieminchew.com) says, “I have
the good fortune of living in an area that is rich with talented artists.” She
now has added her own artistic vision and skills to those of members on the
Chatham Artists Guild http://www.chathamartistsguild.org/), and will open
her studio the first two weekends in December at the 20th Annual
Chatham Studio Tour. Visitors to Minchew’s studio will enjoy her unique soft
sculptural creations. “I thrive on creativity - mine and others', she notes.
“For my own art, I tend to be drawn to media and objects that allow me to build
with my hands.” Minchew currently is using wool and silk fiber, cloth, yarns,
thread, wire, paper and other things in processes including wet-felting, dyeing,
weaving, stitching, and anything else she can find useful.

Christie Minchew in her Chatham County Studio

Christie
Minchew comes to her eclectic adaptability genetically. “I was a Navy brat, and
moved a lot until I was nine,” she reflects. “My mom was frugal and creative”,
she reminisces. “If she wanted something for the house or for us, she’d figure
out how to make it herself.”Christie
joined in her mother’s projects, and developed skills for working with her
hands at an early age. “I didn’t really ever play with dolls, she recalls. “I
made rooms in which they could live in style.” Already drawn to color, Minchew
brightly painted the inside of her closets. She constructed purses from
cardboard, and her mother taught her to sew.

Later
living in the DC area, her father stationed at the Pentagon, Christie enrolled
in the School of Architecture at Virginia Tech. For an architecture statement
project, she partially designed and constructed a weaver’s loom – It took her
five years – It now lives in her Chatham studio.

She
graduated with a specialization in Landscape Architecture, and for about a year
and a half worked as a landscape architect in Richmond. In the 1980s, a
downturn in the economy prompted a significant change in Christie’s life path.
She talked herself into a job as a System Engineer at IBM, providing technical
sales support. After several years, she moved to sales, capitalizing on her
natural skills in relationship marketing of “big computers”. Her over 20 year
career associated with IBM found her living in California, and finally in
Raleigh. In 2001, she left the corporate life.

She
craved a less corporate personal look, and designed and hand made a purse.
Friends encouraged her to make more. She started participating in craft shows.
She recalls, “One day in a fabric store, the proprietor noticed one of my hand
made purses and asked if I could make patterns.”This launched a new business, “Sweetbriar
Studio”, a sewing pattern business that continues today.

Minchew’s latest transformation resulted from
her desire to transition from fine craft to works more creatively artistic. “In
about 2008, I wanted to start making table runners, but was looking for a way
to make them not only decorative, but more free-form,” she states. “While on
vacation, I was thumbing through a magazine and noticed an advertisement for a
"wet-felted" garment. When I got home, I taught myself to wet-felt.”
As a result of getting back into sewing and then working with felting,
Christie’s latent addiction to all things fiber was reignited.

Sculptural fiber art inspired by galactic image

Minchew’s
unique fabric creations are characterized by dimensionality, pattern and
texture, and often inspired by the microscopic and telescopic patterns in the
natural world. It is, as she puts it, “organicy looking”. “I like this
counterpoint to the technical control of the corporate world, or even the
pattern business.” The wet felting process is exciting to her. “The material
transforms before your eyes,” she emotes. “There is this wonderful balance
between artistic control and serendipity.”

Christie Minchew is one of the many
regionally and nationally recognized artists and fine crafts people who will
open their studios the first two weekends in December at the 20th
Annual Chatham Studio Tour (http://www.chathamartistsguild.org/about/details.html). Visitors from all around enjoy Chatham’s rural beauty
and share with the members of the Chatham Artists Guild in the creative
process. It is a holiday tradition, and an opportunity to purchase unique original
art.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Chatham County artist and writer, Forrest C. Grenslade, PhD
will debut his new book, Visitations: A Nature-Lover’s Journal at downtown
Pittsboro’s Joyful Jewel on Sunday August 5th at 1 PM.

"I was that kid you could always find turning over
rocks in streams, looking for what wonders nature would disclose to me,"
says Greenslade. His curiosity about the natural world, led him to a life as
scientist and organizational executive. Now in retirement, Dr. Greenslade is
again doing what he did when he was ten years old -- turning over rocks and
sculpting and painting the wonders that nature discloses.

Visitations: A Nature-Lover’s Journal is the
place where you can capture your own discoveries in your garden, on your walks
through your special places, or just in your reveries. Greenslade’s newest book
is a collection of his nature-inspired paintings and original poems, coupled
with spaces to daily record your experiences in your garden and special natural
places.

Along with his new book, Greenslade will exhibit a selection
of his artwork at the Jewel. His organic sculptures and paintings, derived from
a life-long love of nature and mythology, have a new look and feel.
Greenslade’s work is highly stylized yet clearly grounded in the natural world.
His relief paintings are sculptural, built up with inches of thick acrylics and
modeling paste to the point that they nearly jump off the canvas. His
sculptures are enhanced with innovative coatings and patinas producing color,
texture and an illusion of movement. His enhanced watercolors are soft and
luminous. “I want people to experience motion and emotion in my art,”
Greenslade asserts, “so my faces are seldom symmetrical and my figures just
can’t stand still.” Greenslade’s use of materials is eclectic. “Because of my
scientific training, I tend to be experimental in my choice of media,” he
explains. “I use metal, concrete, clay, acrylics, wood, found-objects –
whatever tells the best story.”

"I lived a serious life, but now in my dotage, I am
just letting the kid out again, " Greenslade smiles.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Metalsmith
Lynell (http://www.designsbylynell.com/) is a new member
of the Chatham Artists Guild (http://www.chathamartistsguild.org/). Visitors to
her studio, just south of Chapel Hill, during the 20th Annual
Chatham Studio Tour, will enjoy her eclectic garden and lovely nature-inspired
jewelry.Lynell’s art in precious metals
captures the diverse experiences of an unexpectedly adventurous life.

Lynell in her Chatham County Studio
Photo: LD

Lynell
grew up on a farm near Asheville North Carolina in the 1950’s, the third of
four children. “It was a simple life – I enjoyed doing farm chores with my
brother, exploring the streams and woodlands, and just being outside,” she
recalls. Her father ran the farm, and her mother was a housewife and later
became a beautician. Lynell worked in her mom’s beauty shop after school.
Lynell was always attracted to art, but there were no art classes in school.
“The closest thing to an art class was mechanical drawing, and girls were not
allowed to take it,” she notes

Lynell
worked in a factory and took some art classes for a time, but her life made to
an abrupt change for the better, when the Winnebago Company moved into town,
and opened a van conversion facility. “I heard that they were hiring artists,
she states, “And I went to talk myself into a job.” Winnebago gave two weeks to
prove her skills, painting murals on vans. Prove herself she did. “It was the
best job!” she emotes. “I was actually getting paid to make art.” The company
even paid Lynell to take art classes at UNC Asheville. “I realized that I was
an artist, and always would be,” She asserts.

This
period in the early 1970s was a wonderful time for Lynell. She met Denny, her
now husband of 30 plus years. “He supported my art and recognized how much it
meant to me,” Lynell contemplates. “We have been partners in adventure ever
since.”

Artists and adventurers
Photo: LD

In
the mid70s, the Winnebago plant closed because of the gas crisis. Lynell went
full time into her painting – landscapes, nature, some life drawings. She began
to participate in art shows.

In
1982,Lynell and Denny moved to the
Pittsboro area, and opened an upscale shop “The Vintage Gourmet” in Cole Park Plaza.
They offered good cheeses, good wines, good coffee, sea food – things that
folks couldn’t get in supermarkets at the time. Lynell continued to paint and
did “crafty projects”. They ran this business for 9 years. Their daughter and
son went on to college, and they looked for a new adventure.

Lynell
and Denny learned pottery from well known potter Jim Pringle, and worked with
him for a time. To help out a friend, Lynell took a job in a local dental lab,
and learned the very precise skills of metalsmithing.

Denny
had always loved sailing, and Lynell wanted to learn. “We rented a little
sailboat at Jordan Lake, and he tried to teach me,” she smiles. “We fought all
day.” Lynell decided to go to a women’s sailing school in Chesapeake to learn
the basics, and after that the couple got along fine. They began talking about
an extended sailing activity. Denny began studying for his captain’s license.
Lynell helped him study. Denny encouraged her to take the captain’s test
too. They each passed the Coast Guard exam, bought a 27 foot sail boat, packed
up their belongings, rented out their house, and launched a 7 year voyage all
up and down the Eastern seaboard. For a time, they ran a marina in the Florida
Keys. They later took a 3-month road trip across the US.

Lynell's creation in precious metals
Photo: LD

Upon
returning to Chatham, they continued to explore various art media. They became
interested in working with metal. “One day we took the Chatham Studio Tour, and
visited Monnda Welch,” Lynell explains.
Lynell said to Welch, “You’re going to teach me how to do this.” She worked
under Welch’s tutelage for 3 to 4 years. “I am still learning from Monnda,” she
stresses.

In
the mid 2000s, Lynell established her own metalsmithing studio. She creates
artful jewelry that reflects the many facets of her life’s adventures. “My work
reflects a love of the rich cultural heritage and environment of not only North
Carolina where I grew up, but also as a result of traveling across our
beautiful and diverse country.” She notes. Monnda Welch says, “Lynell paints
with metal.

Lynell is one of the many regionally and
nationally recognized artists and fine crafts people who will open their
studios the first two weekends in December at the 20th Annual
Chatham Studio Tour (http://www.chathamartistsguild.org/about/details.html).
Visitors from all around enjoy Chatham’s rural beauty and share with the
members of the Chatham Artists Guild in the creative process. It is a holiday
tradition, and an opportunity to purchase unique original art.

Monday, July 16, 2012

I was born in 1939 in a small town in upstate New York. By
that time, the territory of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, which before 1800 had
ranged from Texas to South Carolina, had been reduced to a tract of land in
Louisiana. The demand for lumber in the US after the Civil War had stripped the
South of its vast woodlands. The need for boxes to support the effort in World
War II then caused the destruction of those woods in Louisiana. That year, A
Cornell University PhD student, working with the National Audubon Society,
reported that there might be only 25 Ivory Bills alive in the US, mostly in
that Louisiana tract, and only one mating pair.

Twilight for the Lord God Bird
A painting in watercolor and colored pencil by Forrest C. Greenslade, PhD

The last recorded sighting of an Ivory Bill was in 1944. I
was in grammar school. We had a Junior Audubon Club in our school – I was an
enthusiastic member. What I remember most in the little magazine that we
received, was J. J. Audubon’s iconic painting of a family of Ivory Billed
Woodpeckers. He had painted it in the 1820s, and published it in 1831 in Birds of America. Back then, the Ivory
Bill was known by many colloquial names: the Van Dyke, White Back, Pate,
Tit-Ka. Audubon noted, that because of the size and beauty of the Ivory Bill,
many folks exclaimed “Lord God, what a bird”.

Audubon and the Junior Audubon Club had a lasting impact on
my entire life. I was that kid you could always find turning over rocks in
streams, looking for what wonders nature would disclose to me. I was lucky to
study biology in high school, college and graduate school, which takes me to
another encounter with the Lord God Bird.

In the early 1960s, I went to New Orleans to attend graduate
school at Tulane University. Our library had an original elephant folio copy of
Audubon’s Birds of America. We were
actually allowed to touch this precious book. I luxuriated in leafing through
Audubon’s wood cut prints, and again the Ivory Billed Woodpecker painting was
my favorite. I was taking a program in Biological Sciences. This required
courses ranging from Botany to Molecular Biology and Natural History. In an
Avian Biology course, we went on a field trip to a swampy woodland about an hour
from New Orleans. Deep in this wild place, we all swore that we caught a
glimpse of an Ivory Bill.

Piliated Woodpecker
Watercolor and colored pencil by Forrest

There had been a lot of rumors of Ivory Bill sightings all
around the country. Most experts dismissed these observations as mistaking the
slightly smaller and common Piliated Woodpecker for the Ivory Bill. Did we make
the same mistake? Probably – but this experience is a memory that I have
cherished for a lifetime.

My curiosity about the natural world, led me to a life as
scientist and organizational executive. Now in retirement, I am again doing
what I did in grammar school -- turning over rocks and sculpting and painting
the wonders that nature discloses.

In 2002, a six-person international team searched the Pearl
River Wildlife Management Area in Louisiana. They found some signs of Ivory
Bills but no birds. In the last couple of years, there were purported sightings
in Arkansas and Florida. Is the Ivory Billed Woodpecker extinct? Likely – But
if not extinct, the Lord God Bird is in its twilight.

My painting is my wish
that this magnificent bird has a little more time.

Forrest

Notes: Historical information was taken from Phillip Hoose's excellent book, The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, Melanie Kroupa Books, 2004, New York. To my knowlege, there are no colored photographs of the Ivory Bill. I used J. J. Audubon's painiting, which he did from dead field specimens, to guide my selection of colors.

About Forrest

"I was that kid you could always find turning over rocks in streams, looking for what wonders nature would disclose to me," says Greenslade. His curiosity about the natural world led him to a life as scientist and organizational executive. Now in retirement, Dr. Greenslade is again doing what he did when he was ten years old -- turning over rocks and sculpting and painting the wonders that nature discloses.
"I lived a serious life, but now in my dotage, I am just letting the kid out again," Greenslade smiles.
"It's more fun than an old guy deserves."
My wife Carol-Ann and I live in Fearrington Village, where we host The Artist's Garret AirBNB over my Organic Forrestry Studio.